


Permission

by Miri1984



Series: What Makes Me Happy [4]
Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Steve swears, Talking, natasha eats chips and gives life advice, so does natasha, steve doesn't know what he wants, talking and angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-19
Updated: 2014-06-19
Packaged: 2018-02-05 09:33:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,347
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1813717
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Miri1984/pseuds/Miri1984





	Permission

Steve had never thought of himself as a very complicated person. Complicated things happened to him, sure, but at the base of things he was just a kid from Brooklyn.

It got harder and harder to convince himself of that. 

He’d been too embarrassed to join him back at Clint’s apartment, too keyed up to sleep and way too keyed up to try to do anything but punch bags in the gym. So he was punching bags in the gym.

He didn’t hear Natasha come in. He was wrapped in the feel of the bag under his knuckles. It wasn’t so bad, these days. He only broke the bags every third or fourth session. Bucky had come down and punched one with him once, but the metal arm was hilariously effective. Steve had tried to hold the bag for him and Bucky’s fist had gone straight through it. They’d ended up on the floor of the gym, laughing, Bucky curled into Steve’s body the way they could do, now that the first kiss had been out of the way.

They’d stayed there for a timeless interval. A long short time that involved tongues and hands. And when they’d finally made their way back to Steve’s apartment there’d been sand from the bag in places that Steve didn’t know sand could technically get. 

There were cleaners in the tower and by the time Steve had managed to get back down to the gym with a dustpan and brush, the broken bag was gone and the floor was clear. He’d felt guilty about it ever since.

“So I’m guessing that the fact that Bucky showed up at Clint’s place after only about ten minutes that you didn’t do the sex.”

Steve did not stop punching the bag, but his fist hesitated a little bit. “Did you just say “do the sex?” Natasha?”

“My native language is Russian.”

“I speak Russian, Natasha, the verb forms don’t work like that.”

“Depends on the region,” she said, shrugging. She had another bag of chips and she was eating them precisely, popping them in her mouth and crunching. “Were you going to tell anyone about you and Barnes? Ever?”

“I didn’t want it to be common knowledge,” he said. “And I wanted Bucky to be okay with it.”

“Did you ask him what he wanted?”

Steve stopped punching. Then he laid his palms flat against the bag and looked around at Nat, who had one eyebrow slightly raised. “I’ve already been lectured once tonight,” he said.

“Is that what he was doing?” She raked her eyes up and down him. Steve was pretty used to being looked at like that by now, the USO had inured him to it and since the Chitauri invasion he’d had a whole lot more in the form of reporters and fans at signings. Most people were pretty subtle about it, some people were downright rude. Natasha doing it felt wrong, though, like being ogled by a sister. Probably because there was absolutely no heat in that gaze. She’d looked at her chips with more desire. “Waste if you ask me.” She dragged out the next word and made him smile. “Specimaaaaan.”

He shook his head. “We’re going slowly.”

“Why?”

Steve frowned at her. “I figured _you’d_ know why.”

She popped another chip in her mouth. “I told you I only act like I know everything Rogers, it’s about time you started believing me. What was in _his_ lecture?"

"Fewer chips and more painful past history."

"And you were worried about shared life experience," Tasha said, smiling. He could chuckle at that. "So you two got together but you're not doing the -"

"Please don't use that turn of phrase again Tasha.”

"You're not having sex yet. And you're convinced it's because he's got issues with...?"

"Consent, mainly," Steve said. "Look I'm not stupid and I know he cares about me but I'm pretty much the only person he has any regular contact with and Sam said.." Natasha waited, chewing on another chip, eyebrows raised. "Back when we were looking for him. Just after the cemetery. Sam said he'd imprinted on me. I mean he was worried that the next time I saw him he'd try to kill me or worse..."

"Worse?"

"He thought Bucky might think I was his new handler. Like whatever,” he swallowed. “Whatever Pierce was to him."

There had been footage of the soldier in his vault in DC. Footage of Pierce and the other scientists. Steve had watched it all, even though it had made him sick to his stomach. He didn't even know if Bucky remembered any of that yet - the early memories - of Brooklyn and the war - they had come back relatively quickly. Later memories - of his time as the soldier - they were trickling in a small amount at a time. 

Bucky said that was a good thing. 

Natasha didn’t seem at all surprised by that little bit of information. "It makes sense," she said. That little, sick feeling that had sat in Steve's gut suddenly got heavier and he swallowed. 

"You think he might have done that?" he asked. "Imprinted on me?" _Like a duckling._

She gave a noncommittal shrug. “I did the same thing.”

Steve didn’t want to be, but he was curious. He knew from bits of pieced together information during their missions that Tasha had defected. He hadn’t quite managed to match up the timelines, but he knew that Clint had been involved. There were big black spots in his knowledge about her, things that had made it hard to work with her when Fury had first started sending them on missions.

By the time they’d landed on the Lemurian Star he’d worked past it. In the SSR there’d been agents like her, and you learned to trust them for certain things and not for others. Bucky had never trusted them at all, but that was all right in the end. As long as you knew their mission they were more useful than not.

After Zola’s bunker, though, she’d been easier for Steve to read, and a lot easier to trust. “You…” he didn’t like the word. Or perhaps he just didn’t like the implications. “You imprinted on Clint?"

"At first. But it was Fury who took advantage of it."

Steve frowned. "I thought you liked Fury."  She shrugged. "And I also thought you and Clint had a..."

She smiled, but it was the kind of smile that didn't reach her eyes. "We do," she said. "But it's complicated."

"Because of the imprinting thing?"

"Mostly because Clint's a human disaster - something else I think he shares with Barnes. Really I mean as far as things in common go you're the one who has the least when it comes to him even if you did grow up together.”

Steve didn’t really know about that. He felt a bit like his entire life was a catalogue of human disasters. Especially now. "But you two have made it work?"

She laughed. “Insofar as something like that ever can."

Steve spread his hands. "So why are you here - to tell me I should stop taking it slow with Bucky?"

"No. That's entirely up to the two of you. I'm just down here because Clint and Sam wanted to show Bucky an episode of Leverage and I've seen that show a thousand fucking times already." Steve let out a huff of laughter. "What did he say to you? After we left."

"He wanted to know what I wanted. It got a little…”

“A little heated? A little sexy? Come on Sam and I may have money riding on this…”

“… morbid."

She didn’t look surprised. She _did_ look mildly intrigued. “Captain America wants morbid things?"

 _"Not_ like that."

"So what do you want?"

He could still see Bucky’s face when he’d tried to tell him what he wanted. The blankness. Then the anger. “I want him to be happy."

She laughed. "Is that what you told him?"

"Yeah."

"I bet that pissed him off."

"Yeah. A lot. He said…” Steve stopped. He thought about what Bucky had said, and for the first time it really hit him. Without thinking he was suddenly sitting on the bench, next to his gear, one bandage half off his hand. “God.”

“What is it Steve?”

“He said that wasn’t an option Tasha.”

She frowned. “Not an option? That him being happy wasn’t an option? Is that what he said? Or did he say that _you wanting_ him to to be happy wasn’t an option?”

“Is there a difference?”

She sat down next to him and offered him a chip. He took it more out of politeness than any desire for one — Depression mentality — if someone offered you food you took it. Hell, sometimes if they didn’t offer it you took it. He had a sudden, all senses memory of sitting on a wall with Bucky, trying not to throw up after eating at least ten too-green apples that Bucky had been given as “a gift” for helping Mrs Alladay with her washing. He’s stolen them, and Steve had known he’d stolen them, and he’d never said anything because when someone offered you fresh food and your gut was empty and aching it was so, so hard to remember why you had to say no.

“Of course there’s a difference, Steve. Bucky is as much of a goober as you are.”

“What’s a goober?”

She waved a hand.

“Not important. He wants you to be happy, you want him to be happy neither of you can see that the best way you can be happy is to fuck. Or you know. Not necessarily fuck because I’m not a big believer in the magical healing properties of penises in general. Not unless they’re used creatively.”

_“Natasha.”_

“You love each other and you want to be together and you’re hung up on sex.” She shrugs. “Sex isn’t as important as everyone thinks it is. Do you want to have sex with him?”

Steve gives her a look. “Yes.”

“Does he want to have sex with you?”

“He’s certainly intimated that it would be a nice thing to do.”

“So.”

“Natasha you’re the one who just said it’s likely he’s imprinted on me. If I tell him it’s all right to… If I do that how do I know he’s actually saying yes and not just… “

Natasha sighs. “Steve there’s never gonna be a time when you’re sure about his feelings and with people as damaged as you are it’s actually better to trust them than not to.”

“I trust him.”

“No you don’t, otherwise you’d be up there making whoopee rather than talking to me.”

“God fucking damn it,” Steve said. Natasha let out a peal of laughter that was like sunlight.

“You know we only try to make you swear because it sounds so _wrong_ coming from that ridiculously perfect mouth, right Rogers?” He ran a hand through his hair and shook his head. “Did you love him before you died, Steve?” she asked him. “Do you think he loved you?”

“He’s not the same. Neither of us are.”

“You didn’t answer the question.”

Steve looked at his hands. He thought about Peggy, remembered the thrill of her eyes on him, the feeling of being safe and contained and wanted. He’d loved her, he knew that. Still did, when the person she was shone through. It didn’t matter that she was bedridden and didn’t remember him half the time, she was _Peggy._

Then he thought about Bucky and he tried, really hard, to remember what he’d used to feel, when he’d looked at him. When Bucky had charged through the pack of whoever’s turn it was to beat up Stevie Rogers that week, fists flying and eyes blazing. When he’d found Bucky on that gurney in Austria. When he’d watched him fall.

“I loved him,” he said. It felt strange to admit that, to let the words roll around his tongue. He’d always been told you could only love one person, that to try to love more than that was wrong. But he loved Bucky, he was more sure of that than anything else, and he still loved Peggy. He loved Sam and Natasha too, really. Why would you ever try to stop yourself from loving people, even if you could? Loving people was _easy._ Loving people was right. 

Before the serum, it hadn’t even been complicated. Before the serum love had just been something he felt, not something he had to act on.

Through it all, though, there’d always been Bucky. First love. Never faded. 

_What’s your name kid? You’ve got guts._

Natasha squeezed his knee. “I think the biggest thing you’ve got to do with someone like Barnes,” she said, “is believe them when they tell you what they want. Because for us, wanting things is a sign of something we were never allowed.” Her voice changed, then, and she looked straight ahead. It was an expression that reminded him of Fury, strangely. “It wasn’t so bad for me. They let me out. I had times when I could take something that was just for me. I’d have to hide it, but it was mine. I knew how to want things, even if I could never get them. Barnes never even had that.”

“I…”

She squeezed his leg again. “You used to trust him. Trust him again. It can only do him good.”

She picked up the bag of chips and walked towards the door. Paused. “Steve, you’re allowed to want things too you know. You’ve _always_ been allowed to want things.”

“I know that Tasha.”

She looked at him for a long moment, and her eyes were sadder than he’d seen them since she thought Fury had died. “No, I really don’t think you do.”

When she was gone he looked down at his hands, half unwrapped from their bandages, the sour taste of salt and vinegar in his mouth.

_What do you really want, Steven Grant Rogers?_

That was the question, in the end. Wasn’t it?


End file.
